A dissident freed by Russia within the largest prisoner swap because the Chilly Struggle has vowed to return to the nation.
Vladimir Kara-Murza instructed the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg he thought he was being “led out to be executed” throughout his launch in Siberia final month.
The twin British-Russian citizen realised he was one in every of 24 prisoners to be freed within the change when he was on the airplane.
However in his first joint interview along with his spouse Evgenia in Europe since they reunited, he defiantly reveals to the BBC that he plans to return to Russia.
“You recognize, when our airplane was taking off from Vnukovo airport in Moscow en path to Ankara on 1 August, the FSB [Russian Federal Security Service] officer who was my private escort sitting subsequent to me turned to me and mentioned, ‘Look out the window, that is the final time you are seeing your motherland,'” he instructed me.
“And I simply laughed in his face, and I mentioned, ‘Look, man, I’m a historian, I don’t simply assume, I don’t simply consider, I do know that I’ll be again residence in Russia, and it’s going to occur a lot ahead of you may think about.’”
Kara-Murza, one of many Kremlin’s most vocal critics, was held in solitary confinement in a excessive safety jail after receiving a 25-year sentence in April 2023 on prices of excessive treason.
The complete interview will air on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg.
